3/29/14

The Existential Project Manager - Jean-Paul Sartre

“In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations.”

The phrase "reality alone counts" made me think of the agile manifesto principle "Working software is the primary measure of progress."

I wondered, how many other quotes from Sartre could be applied to agile software project management. Here are some I found:

On project planning:

“We are our choices.”

“Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.”

“I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.”

On the development team:

“We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact. ”

On Timeboxing and time management:

“Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”

“You must be like me; you must suffer in rhythm.”

“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”

“There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”

On the Scrum team:

“Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.”

On Sprints:

“Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action. (There is no reality except in action.)”

On demonstrating working code:

“Existence is an imperfection.”

“Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.”

Risk Management:

“I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.”

On releasing code

“One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet one’s whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are — your life, and nothing else.”

On retrospectives:

“You and me are real people, operating in a real world. We are not figments of each other’s imagination. I am the architect of my own self, my own character and destiny. It is no use whingeing about what I might have been, I am the things I have done and nothing more. We are all free, completely free. We can each do any damn thing we want. Which is more than most of us dare to imagine.”

“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.”